Dozens of Delegations Walked Out as Netanyahu Told the UN General Assembly 'We Prevented a Second Holocaust'

Benjamin Netanyahu addressed the United Nations General Assembly on Thursday to a chamber that emptied out within minutes of him taking the podium, as delegations from dozens of countries stood and walked out in protest. Al Jazeera's report on the speech describes an Israeli prime minister undeterred by the emptying hall, who used the platform to defend the two year campaign in Gaza in the most direct terms he has used at the UN. "We prevented a second Holocaust," Netanyahu told the remaining delegates, framing the military campaign as an act of national survival rather than, as many of the walkout countries argue, a humanitarian catastrophe.

Two targets by name

Netanyahu used part of the speech to attack New York City's mayor-elect, Zohran Mamdani, over his criticism of Israeli policy, a highly unusual choice for a head of government to single out an incoming municipal official from the UN podium. He also turned on Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, accusing Ankara of being a "spreader of antisemitic lies", a line that drew an immediate rebuke. Middle East Eye's coverage of the assembly week reports that the Turkish presidency called the attack "incompatible with the ideals of peace, the rule of law and dialogue that the United Nations represents", a striking rebuttal aimed at the chamber's own membership rather than Israel alone.

A hall built for two audiences

NPR's account of the address notes that Netanyahu's own delegation and a handful of allied governments remained seated throughout, standing to applaud at several points, a split-screen contrast with the walkout that Israeli officials have described as proof the country does not need the assembly's approval. Netanyahu also thanked Donald Trump directly for ordering US strikes on Iranian nuclear sites earlier this year, tying his own domestic standing to the American president's continued backing at a UN session where the two men's governments have increasingly stood apart from the rest of the chamber on both Gaza and Iran.

What the walkout signals

The scale of the walkout, which began before Netanyahu started speaking and continued through the opening minutes, is being read in New York as a marker of how isolated Israel's position has become at the UN even among governments that do not formally recognise a Palestinian state. It follows a week in which the Palestinian Authority's president addressed the same chamber by video after Washington denied him a visa, and in which Iran's president used his own address two days earlier to reject Trump's public threat to "annihilate" Iran. Netanyahu's speech leaves that argument unresolved, delivered to an audience that had, for the most part, already left the room.